Review Revue: Captain Sensible – A Day in the Life of…

Captain Sensible, born Raymond Burns in 1955, was a founding and on-again off-again member of the legendary punk band The Damned. He is probably the only member of the Damned — if not the only punk guitarist ever – to have recorded a Rogers and Hammerstein song (“Happy Talk“), never mind to have that song sampled by Dizzee Rascal.

Of course the Dizzee Rascal-sampling was a ways off in the future when this compilation of Captain Sensible’s singles rolled into KCMU (in fact, Dizzee hadn’t even been born yet), but his reputation seems to have preceded him, along with his dashing red beret.

“‘You gotta be joking…’ Yes, folks, finally a domestic release from the Captain (albeit compilation). One new single plus various cuts from his 1982 and 1983 LPs. It’s rather safe (how about ‘Jimi Hendrix’s Strat’?) but destined to commercial — at least college — success. Oh, in case you don’t already know, like if you’ve never talked to me about my faves, captain is guitarist for the Damned. Thank god!”

“Where are your comments? C’mon…”

“‘Snakes + Ladders’ version is a combo of the the remix version and 7″ version. I guess us US folks have to be treated special.”

“Play this lots.”

“Okay Mash, I love ‘Snakes + Ladders’… it’s quite pleasurable.”

“I like being called ‘Mash.’ It’s quite pleasurable.”

“Okay, my buddy.”

“OK, Mashed Cook is out. Mash, star of Late Night with David Letterman is in.”

“Side 1 — cut 2 is a white dot! Be warned!!” [I’m having a hard time figuring out which tracks on this album could have been commercially successful enough to warrant a white dot, never mind this additional warning regarding said white dot. The Captain doesn’t seem to have had any big hits in the US, as far as I can tell.]

One Comment

White dot didn’t necessarily require a song to be a national hit. More often than not, it was when it was a local hit. There was some overlap between KCMU’s playlist and KJET’s at times. KCMU white dotted songs that received frequent KJET airplay. KJET was much more singles oriented than KCMU so the idea of the white dot was to encourage futher exploration of the album’s other cuts.